Five Tips To Make 2016 Your Happiest And Most Productive Year Yet

Can you believe it? It’s the end of the first full week of the new year, and 2015 is very much behind us. Now is a good time to access whether or not you did a good job at taking time to make your new years resolutions and goals a reality. If not, don’t get down on yourself. It is a new week and it’s time to get focused! To help you prepare for a year defined by success, happiness, and MANY achieved goals, we’ve created a list of some of our favorite productivity tools. We hope it helps you feel a little more prepared and excited for all you’ve yet to achieve this year!

1. Create A To-Do List of Actionable Tasks

How satisfying is it to cross a completed task off of your to-do list? Make more of those moments and more daily progress by breaking your long-term goals into actionable tasks that you can work towards each day. TIP: If you work in an office, try to revisit your to-do list at the end of each day and create a new list that you can utilize as a roadmap for the next day. We like to use Evernote to make lists and organize our thoughts, and the basic version is free! It syncs across all your devices and makes project management a breeze.

2. Small Commitments Add Up. Consider Yours.

Time adds up. If you spend even 30 minutes per week on a task, that time adds up to a full three weeks a year. Consider if the tasks that you are choosing to spend your time on are helping you reach your long and short-term goals. Are they adding to your relationships, creative endeavors or your career? If not, maybe it’s time to move that time and attention elsewhere.

3. Share Your Ideas. Speak Up. Take Initiative

Most of us can remember a time in our lives when we were eager to try new things or volunteer for new projects whether it was personally or professionally. This year, focus on re-engaging that part of yourself. How will you spend the next 365 days? Learn something new, share an idea at work, or tackle a home improvement project that you’ve had on the shelf. This time next year you’ll be so happy you did.

4. Leave The Box Food Behind

This year, learn to cook something new. Shake up your shelf, like by shopping for only the ingredients you need to put into your body – and not more, skipping on the boxes and bags of frozen goods. Plenty of the things that we buy for convenience can be easily prepared. By cooking food that you would have bought in a box you’ll be providing yourself with a tastier (and more nutritious) alternative while adding a new skill. Start with these simple recipes from purewow.com. Then, try some of your own. Search your family recipe books and remember what food tastes like when it’s whipped up the way mom made it. Remember, you are what you eat!

5. Your Home Can Be A Happier Place

Your home to be a place of comfort and peace. Make some changes at the start of this year to help yourself find a little more joy in the space you spend most of your time. Enough with the T.V.! We know, it can be a bit overbearing to be told constantly to ditch the screen time, but it can never hurt to switch things up on occasion. Have a cook off, try a new craft or break out the board games and puzzles. Get to talking and engaging the brains and bodies of your family or roommates rather than encouraging stir-craziness from screen time.

If you need help finding that spot to live out your 2016 goals, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and give us a call! You can reach us at 615.807.0579.